Microsoft no longer thinks Linux poses a threat to its desktop Windows business.
Directions on Microsoft's Wes Miller pointed out via Twitter how Microsoft has changed the boilerplate "Competition" section in its last two annual financial filings with the SEC.

I hear this argument all the time and I just have to laugh. Most people can't run Windows without it getting completely hosed. So aside from a diminishing number of software titles, why exactly do consumers need Windows?

There are, by some estimates, about 1.5 billion PC users.

The breakdown looks much like this:

Win XP 49.5%
Win 7 27.5%
Vista 14.8%
OSX 6.2%
Linux 0.8%

Desktop 95.4%
Mobile 4.6%

Source: StatCounter

The webstat is biased towards those with the most time and freedom to surf the web ---

and those whose systems are in pretty good shape. The work gets done. The music plays.

The notion that the masses find the Windows OS difficult or unmanagable is nonsense, pure fantasy.

Amazon.com alone stocks over 78,000 commercial software titles for Windows. You can add to that list thousands more from Windows "repositories" for freeware and shareware like Download.com and essentially everything in FOSS for the desktop client OS.

Mozilla gets 97% of its funding from the add-click. From its placement on the Windows desktop, for all practical purposes.<p>For visibility and funding you can't beat the port to the Windows.

The average Linux gamer paid $12 for Hunble Indie 3 Bundle - the Windows gamer $5. But total payments from the Linux gamer were less than one-quarter of the whole.

The Windows OS does not demand any ideological or political commitment from its users. That is in many ways a profoundly liberating experience.

Content protection is acceptable in return for services like Netflix or games like "Batman: Arkham City" and "Bioshock: Infinite."

The Windows OS does not demand any ideological or political commitment from its users. That is in many ways a profoundly liberating experience.

Oh cut the bullshit, companies and users en masse rely on Linux for their daily work without harbouring any political/ideological 'commitments'.

Judging by comments regarding Linux by Windows users here on OSNews one could draw the conclusion that a prerequisite to using Windows would be to hate Linux, which is likewise just as untrue.

As for the home user desktop, Windows have nothing to worry about, not even from OSX. On the enterprise desktop there may be a different story, atleast here in Sweden I'm seeing Linux (Ubuntu mainly) increasingly being deployed on company desktop/laptops in the IT sector. Again, this is purely anecdotal as it only pertains to my own observations.